There have conventionally been proposed various printers characterized by including: a conveyer unit for conveying a printing medium that is long sized; a printing head for carrying out printing on the printing medium that is conveyed, the printing being carried out by forming each array of dots aligned on each of a plurality of printing lines, the printing lines being in orthogonal direction to a conveying direction and provided at intervals obtained by dividing a unit length of the printing medium by resolution; and a cutter that is arranged at downstream of the conveying direction in comparison with the printing head. A conventional printer of this kind is forced to arrange its cutter and printing head apart from each other by predetermined distance due to its structural restriction. Therefore, when a cutter is to cut off a front margin of the printing medium to be formed so as to start from a point of a start of printing in a direction reverse to a printing direction, the printing head is supposed to be located at a printing-half-done position. Therefore, the printing head has to stop printing temporarily so as to allow the cutter to cut off the front margin and resume printing after the front margin is cut off, which is termed as successive printing and disclosed in prior art.
By the way, among printers which are capable of printing successively as well as printing with two or more of resolution types such as high resolution and low resolution, there is a printer which prints each dot arrays with high resolution on one printing line provided at intervals obtained by dividing a unit length of a printing medium by a numerical value corresponding to high resolution, whereas prints each dot arrays with low resolution so as to occupy a plurality of those printing lines.
For instance, FIG. 14 shows dot patterns formed with a printing head of a printer that is capable of printing with two resolution types, namely, 360 dpi and 180 dpi. In FIG. 14, each single dot represents an array of dots in a tape width direction. Hereinafter, a single dot in FIG. 4 and FIG. 10 is regarded as an array of dots in the following descriptions. (A) is a dot pattern printed with 360 dpi, wherein each dot array is formed on a single printing lines a. The printing lines a are provided at intervals of a length (approximately 0.07 mm) obtained by dividing an inch on a printing medium by the numerical value of 360. On the other hand, as indicated at (B) and (C), each dot array of dot patterns printed with 180 dpi is formed so as to occupy two printing lines a. Therefore, a conveying-directional length of a dot with 180 dpi is twice as that of dot with 360 dpi.
In the above such printer that is capable of printing successively, for allowing the cutter to cut off a front margin, the printing head cannot stop printing temporarily at a half-done position for forming a dot array. Consequently, in case the printer is capable of printing with two or more resolution types such as high resolution and low resolution, length of a front margin to be cut off may differ depending on printing with high resolution or low resolution.
For instance, it is given that a length of a front margin to be cut off is set to 1 as reference value thereof in case of printing with 360 dpi as indicated at (A) in FIG. 14. In case of printing with 360 dpi, the printing head is positioned at a period of forming a dot array when the cutter is at a position to make the length of the front margin 1. Therefore, printing operation can be stopped thereat exactly.
With respect to (A) in FIG. 14, the number of dot arrays (i.e., the number of printing lines a) to be formed from start of printing till temporary stop of printing is an odd number. Thereby, in case of printing with 180 dpi at (B) in FIG. 14, the printing head is positioned at a half-done position for forming a dot array even though the cutter is at a position to make the length of the front margin 1 that is the same the case of (A) in FIG. 14. That is the printing head is at a half-done position for forming a dot array that occupies two printing lines a. Therefore, unless formation of the dot is finished, temporary stop of printing is not allowed prior to the temporary stop in a fashion as indicated at (C) in FIG. 14. In this case, as apparent by making comparison with (A) and (C) in FIG. 14, the number of dot-array-formed printing lines a from the start of printing till the temporary stop of printing with 360 dpi differs from that of “dot-array-formed printing lines a” printed with 180 dpi. The difference means that the printing length printed from the start of printing till the temporary stop of printing with 180 dpi differs from the printing length printed with 360 dpi. The length of the front margin 1 to be cut off at the time of temporary stop of printing is determined by conveying distance that the printing medium is conveyed between the cutter and the printing head, and printing length printed from the start of printing till temporary stop of printing. Therefore, length of the front margin for printing with 180 dpi differs from that of the front margin with 360 dpi.